My Boxing Mystery only Sherlock Holmes MIGHT solve !!! Robinson/Bobby ***** ?

6047 Views 75 Replies 22 Participants Last post by he grant, Aug 29, 2014

Burt Brooks

Discussion Starter · Sep 8, 2012

I have posted this before, but it deserves another shot onTHIS forum...This truly occured to me...
In the early 1950s, an event happened that will puzzle me forever...I, and a buddy now deceased saw Ray Robinson decision a very good WW contender
Bobby ***** at an outdoor Arena in Coney Island, B'klyn, NY...I remember vividly recalling at the event that Ray Robinson fought Bobby ***** ONCE
before in Chicago on TV in Nov, 1950...And Robby won a decision over the lanky Florida boxer Bobby *****...I remember so clearly that
Ray Robinson was late arriving at the match, and about 1 hour later I watched from the top of the outdoor Arena Robinson arriving with his entourage
in a Fuscia colored Cadilac , hustling into the dressing room late..This I saw from the top of the stands peering down...
The fight was uneventful, but the mystery is this fight I SAW has never been recorded in any record book or box.Rec, and try as I could, no record exists
of this bought I watched in the early 1950s...I know from the record books that I have and from some boxing historians, that Ray Robinson did beat a
Billy Brown on Sept 4, 1950, TWO months BEFORE Robinson beat Bobby ***** in their first fight on tv ,Nov 8, 1950...
The fight I saw I recall was years after Robby beat Bobby ***** in 1950...So my mystery has never been solved...An immortal like Robinson
fought a bout in Coney Island Arena against a major boxing figure like Bobby ***** who once whipped Kid Gavilan, which I certainly SAW and
there is no record of this bout...Both Robinson and Bobby ***** are both dead and they would have solved my puzzle were I able to contact them..
A mystery to me indeed...My Bermuda Triangle...

21 - 40 of 76 Posts

GlazedDazedQuarry

· #21 · Feb 15, 2014

The strange thing with this is that Ray only had three fights (officially) this year (1952) so the chances of another fight going missed is highly unlikely.
Of course not impossible. I do not doubt you...
A good source to check would be the Ring Magazines of 1952 which I am certain would have mentioned the fight. . . There must be some collectors on here that have the 1952 collection.

Klompton

· #22 · Feb 15, 2014

never happened

GlazedDazedQuarry

· #23 · Feb 15, 2014

Klompton said:
never happened

That is what I think as there seems to be no evidence of it at all...I do not want to question the poster but it was 61 years ago :huh

thistle1

· #24 · Feb 15, 2014

Oh I'm sure it happened, the poster obviously witnessed some fight that he is attributing to Ray Robinson verses whomever. the obvious thought would be that he is simple mistaken and is crossing his memory with some other fighter or fight. It might have been an exhibition bout as someone else has previously mentioned.

a mix up, exhibition or another fight IS more likely than to just come out and say "it NEVER happened" in such a dismissive manner is manner and behaviour not at all complimentary to mature reasonable intelligent people our age.

arrogance is sure a front runner for too many people on the internet. Best try to figure out what fight it actually was that Burt is thinking of and maybe it was the said parties!

Klompton

· #25 · Feb 15, 2014

Ive pointed out before that "Burt" has said a lot of things that simply dont jive with reality. This particular instance evolved from a case where he mentioned this fight in passing as being a bystander to it and someone else realized that his "facts" didnt jive with reality and called him out on it. Essentially he got caught making it up. He has clung to this story but as has been pointed out several times a fight between one of the two most famous fighters in the world and a top contender in the media capital of the world would have gotten mentioned. You choose to believe its a misunderstanding. I choose to believe that some faceless guy who tells a story that doesnt match reality is more likely to be full of shit. For some reason some seem to think that if your repeat a story enough on the internet (i.e. my dad drove harry greb around in his cab, or a half dozen other oft repeated stories he tells) that it adds credibility. It doesnt. He remains a guy who could just as easily be a 15 year old looking for instant credibility on the net by pretending to be older. That is more often the case on these forums.

See less See more

Bugger

· #26 · Feb 15, 2014

Going outta your way to attack Burt again klompy :rolleyes

I think someone's a little jealous Burt spent all these years actually living boxing history

I agree with the sentiments of thistle

Good luck with your search Burt, i hope you can have some light shed on your queries

take care mate :cheers

Bukkake

· #27 · Feb 16, 2014

The fight Burt thinks he saw, of course never took place. Imagine SRR fighting a well known contender in the early 50s, in Coney Island, and no one ever heard about it... c'mon, that's just silly! How could such a fight not have been mentioned anywhere? Not in The Ring, not in any local papers, not anywhere else. It's just not possible!

But to imply that Burt is deliberately lying about this, is a bit harsh. It's more likely that, 60 years later, he's simply mixing up some fighters. And to say he might be some 15-year-old, pretending to have been following boxing since the early 40s... well, I'm sure even Klompton don't seriously believe that!

Vic

· #28 · Feb 16, 2014

Because people didn´t find any info on this today it doesn´t mean it wasn´t reported when it happened, it´s not like today we have acess to every single piece that was reported back in the day, is it ?
Still, it is Robinson, probably wasn´t a fight, possibly a sparring session maybe ? Exhbition? Not a official fight...

GlazedDazedQuarry

· #29 · Feb 16, 2014

Hi

With all due respect to all the posters here I cannot see how the most famous fighter in the world at that time, in a period when he was very much in the press would have a fight against an elite opponent, in New York the fight capital and for it not to have been recorded by any reporter?? The most likely scenario is that it was an exhibition of some kind...

Luf

· #30 · Feb 16, 2014

It obviously wasn't a proper fight.

It would be like Floyd fighting Maidana and not one paper covering it, absolutely ridiculous to imagine.

An exhibition or open sparring session is more likely although even then a local paper would certainly have covered it.

Mixed memories is something I'd like to believe is the case. Although I'll say this, in terms of probabilities Klompton being right is much more probable than Burt being right.

thistle1

· #31 · Feb 16, 2014

Luf said:
It obviously wasn't a proper fight.

It would be like Floyd fighting Maidana and not one paper covering it, absolutely ridiculous to imagine.

An exhibition or open sparring session is more likely although even then a local paper would certainly have covered it.

Mixed memories is something I'd like to believe is the case. Although I'll say this, in terms of probabilities Klompton being right is much more probable than Burt being right.

it's not a matter of being right, it's a question of Respect, Burt obviously saw a fight, 'probably' an exhibition, but he saw something and someone. Getting dates or even fighters wrong from 60 odd years ago is not a 'wrong', it's simple crossed memory of Who, When and What it was.

absolutely No Reason for slander or insult is the point!!!

Luf

· #32 · Feb 16, 2014

thistle1 said:
it's not a matter of being right, it's a question of Respect, Burt obviously saw a fight, 'probably' an exhibition, but he saw something and someone. Getting dates or even fighters wrong from 60 odd years ago is not a 'wrong', it's simple crossed memory of Who, When and What it was.

absolutely No Reason for slander or insult is the point!!!

I would like to believe it is crossed wires.

I am saying though it is more likely he is lying than it is that he saw the fight he describes.

Vic

· #33 · Feb 16, 2014

Luf said:
It obviously wasn't a proper fight.

It would be like Floyd fighting Maidana and not one paper covering it, absolutely ridiculous to imagine.

An exhibition or open sparring session is more likely although even then a local paper would certainly have covered it.

Mixed memories is something I'd like to believe is the case. Although I'll say this, in terms of probabilities Klompton being right is much more probable than Burt being right.

What if the newspapers decided to boycott the fight for some reason ? Only a radio station had the rights on the fight or soemthing and the newspapers decided to boycott....would we know it that easily ?

Vic

· #34 · Feb 16, 2014

Burt said that 2 or 3 thousand people were at the arena, isn´t that also a very small number of people to watch Robinson in a official fight at that point ?

scartissue

· #35 · Feb 16, 2014

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=215091&highlight=*****

Above is the thread that we all went at hot and heavy with a lot of research involved and we all came up with nothing. Burt, after re-reading the posts, I recall you stating you were going to go over old Ring mags. I take it this did not glean anything? I'm bummed for you, dude. This must be like a burr under your saddle looking for resolution. Good luck, man.

Luf

· #36 · Feb 16, 2014

Vic said:
What if the newspapers decided to boycott the fight for some reason ? Only a radio station had the rights on the fight or soemthing and the newspapers decided to boycott....would we know it that easily ?

most likely answer is the fight didn't happen.

That leaves two possibilities:

1) burt is mistaken
2) burt has lied.

Vic

· #37 · Feb 16, 2014

Luf said:
most likely answer is the fight didn't happen.

That leaves two possibilities:

1) burt is mistaken
2) burt has lied.

Maybe Burt is mistaken, but it´s not like it is impossible for him to be right. In many cases, the most likely scenarios are not correct. That´s what I´m saying.

Duo

· #38 · Feb 16, 2014

Burt, here's what I found on the Coney Island Velodrome:

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coney_Island_Velodrome

Googling "Coney Island Velodrome" with "Sugar Ray Robinson" (just those words within quotation marks), pulls up Dave Anderson's 1992 forward for Ray's 1969 autobiography (third link from the top):

One morning, in the late Summer of 1950 my father
noticed in the New York newspapers that Sugar Ray was
fighting that holiday afternoon in the Coney Island
Velodrome, a little outdoor wooden arena not far from
our Brooklyn apartment.

"Let's go," he said. "You've got to see this guy fight."
Sugar Ray was between titles. He had been the world
welterweight champion from 1946 to 1949 and now he
was campaigning as a middleweight. His opponent that
Labor Day was Billy Brown, durable but not overly
talented. Sugar Ray earned a 10-round decision without
breaking much of a sweat. five months later he would
stop Jake LaMotta in Chicago to win the middleweight
title for the first of five times

This article describes something of that event, in the second half of the second paragraph, the 3,000 in attendance, "in rainy, blustery conditions.":

www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/back-ring-kings-brooklyn-canvas-knockout-card-article-1.926711

Everything I can find on the CIV indicates that September 4, 1950 was its final day of operations before shutting down and getting leveled.

Bobby ***** was listed as being six feet tall, Billy Brown just an inch less, if that.

Here's Brown in action the next year getting stopped by Randy Turpin:

www.britishpathe.com/video/brown-v-turpin

Seeing Billy Brown in action on that brief footage, having viewed Robinson-***** a few times, then finding that every on-line resource states the Coney Island Velodrome closed down operations after September 4, 1950, suggests to me that the 5'11" Billy Brown must have been who you saw against Robinson on that date, not the 6'0" Bobby *****, who Ray took on for the television camera in Chicago two months later.

If the reported description of "rainy, blustery conditions" jives with what you recall the weather to have been, then this mystery can be resolved as a very understandably honest mistake.

Here's that complete card, as listed by Boxrec, for that Labor Day Monday in 1950:

Sugar Ray Robinson W UD 10 Billy Brown
Bobby Rosado W PTS 6 Danny Womber
Jimmy Cerello W PTS 6 Ronnie Hopp
Angel Martinez KO 4 Wayne Eckhardt
Gene Robnett W PTS 4 Abdoul Ali

Does any of this jog your memory?

See less See more

Boogle McDougal

· #39 · Feb 16, 2014

Well that pretty much satisfies my curiosity. It must be the mix-up. If that's not enough, there's always regressive hypnosis.

Luf

· #40 · Feb 16, 2014

Vic said:
Maybe Burt is mistaken, but it´s not like it is impossible for him to be right. In many cases, the most likely scenarios are not correct. That´s what I´m saying.

my point is some attacked klompton for saying he doesn't believe Burt.

in my opinion there's a higher probability that klompton is correct than there is that burt is correct.

21 - 40 of 76 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.